...if you're a high-tax-bracket CA resident and want some fixed income investments in taxable accounts, at least.

This does describe me, so in a sense I'm "talking my book", having accumulated plenty of NKX (my choice among CA muni instruments)... but, I do think I'll be getting a little bit more, so, it's definitely not self-interest that prompts me to post;-).

What makes CA munis a good investment right now (at least for high-bracket CA residents &c) is the usual contrarian mechanics of being greedy when others are fearful. Munis are mostly in the hands of prudent, conservative, wealthy individual investors -- and they're terrified about munis in general due to headlines about Detroit &c. Moreover, they may be politically adverse to CA's current political scene.

And yet... CA's budget is strongly on the mend, as the non-partisan Legislature Analyst recently wrote -- expenses under control, tax revenues very improved (partly it's the new boom in Silicon Valley, partly the new, higher top-brackets taxes... which make tax-free coupons from munis even more relatively appealing, BTW... and, let's not forget gov. Brown's overall praiseworthy mass vetoing of expenditures!-).

The one substantial blotch is the "bullet train" boondoggle -- but, even the local, mostly liberal paper, "San Jose Mercury News", has turned strongly against it in recent editorials... and a judge just might have put a stake through its heart with a recent decision. I feel more optimistic about the fiscal situation of California than I have throughout my 9 years here.

Barron's made similar points (in less detail) in a broad article about munis a couple weeks ago: California tops the rank of hated (and thus undervalued -- therefore, due-to-overperform) States for muni issuance. (But, from the same article: eschew Puerto Rico -- and be careful because many muni bond funds invest partly in Puerto Rico, as _their_ munis are triple-tax-free throughout the US... but the default risks there are really so large as to make one scared!).

After research and due diligence on how best to get exposure to good quality CA muni bonds, I ended up picking NKX (yes they do have some Puerto Rico exposure, but, only 0.5% of the portfolio -- I can live with that). About 90% of its exposure is to investment-grade bonds; it includes a little prudent leverage, pushing its tax-free coupon yield to about 7% (equivalent to more than 15% in fully-taxable bonds). Not perfect (duration, as effectively adjusted by leverage, is a bit longer than I'd prefer at this time), but, pretty good for me.

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